Michelle Malkin slams President Obama in Chicago

Conservative firebrand columnist/blogger Michelle Malkin came to Chicago Thursday night to slam President Obama in his hometown and to slap Republicans who work with Obama instead of fighting him.

“Many of you fight not just the Culture of Corruption among Democrats but the culture of corruption that has paralyzed and plagued much of the Republican Party nationally and locally,” Malkin told 250 members of the United Republican Fund of Illinois.

And Malkin made it clear to this crowd at the Chicago Hilton — site of the 1968 Democratic Convention and riot — that she believes Illinois and Chicago are “Ground Zero” for political corruption in America.

“When I was finishing writing 'The Culture of Corruption,' I looked up at the map of the United States and saw Chicago and I said, ‘It’s all your fault!’ It’s all you here in Chicago, you know the White House and its tax cheats, crooks and cronies better than anyone else in the country,” Malkin said. “You tried to tell your friends around the country and they wouldn’t listen and now they’re having tremendous buyer’s remorse.”

Many of the most conservative Republican candidates who will file for office in Illinois next week were there to cheer Malkin on: Adam Andrzejewski and Dan Proft, who are running for governor; U.S. Senate candidate Patrick Hughes; and congressional and state legislative candidates.

An awkward moment came when Malkin was criticizing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and a member of the audience shouted out that former Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert was just as bad. Hastert’s son Ethan, who is running for his father’s old seat, was also in attendance.

With notable exceptions such as former Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and native son Ronald Reagan, Illinois’ Republicans often come from the moderate, “establishment” wing of the party such as former Govs. Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar, Edgar’s chief of Staff Kirk Dillard, who is running for governor; or U.S. Senate GOP front-runner Mark Kirk. Malkin detests that wing of the party as much as she does Democrats.

Malkin railed against former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich for endorsing “radical leftist” Republican Dede Scozzafava over conservative Doug Hoffman for an upstate New York congressional seat. She complained about "a dozen Republican senators" (actually it was 19)  voting to confirm Attorney General Eric Holder and other Obama nominees.

Malkin did not name any Illinois Republican candidates she considered disloyal or corrupt but she said, “One of the problems I see here is you have Republicans candidates accepting money and support from some organizations that funded Barack Obama.”

Plenty of Illinois Republicans have taken money from SEIU, the state’s largest union, which Malkin slammed.

“There’s no way we can tell Obama and the Democrats to clean their house until we clean our own,” Malkin said. “The kind of community organizing that brought Barack Obama to power is the kind of community organizing that needs to be done by the Republican Party as well.”

Malkin said she moved from the D.C. area to Colorado to enroll her children in a charter school there, then she took a shot at Chicago’s Arne Duncan, who Obama tapped for Education Secretary.

“There are some delusional mainstream conservatives who think Arne Duncan is a friend because he pays lip service to charter schools. Wake up and smell the radical socialism!” she said.

Some of Malkin’s harshest contempt was reserved for First Lady Michelle Obama, who she called “The First Crony,” “The Bitter Half,” “The Other Michelle.” Malkin got a laugh when she opened by saying, “I forgot to bring my hula hoop.”